A Collier County School Board majority made the right call last week by turning down a request from the Marco Island City Council for $8.1 million to construct a new charter high school building on the island.

Kudos to School Board Chairman Roy Terry, who after that 3-2 vote came up with an alternative to enable the district to further contribute to the cause. He gained unanimous board support for his idea.

The academically successful Marco Island Academy is in modular buildings on a barrier island. School leaders have acknowledged at public meetings they were surprised their campus made it through Hurricane Irma.

The charter high school understandably wants a structurally sound building. In addressing the School Board last week, Marco leaders downplayed the aspect of it doubling as an island emergency shelter. What Irma demonstrated, however, is that older public buildings in Collier are vulnerable to a major hurricane. In our view, taxpayer-supported buildings constructed in the future should be fortified to Category 4 or 5 standards.

The new school is a worthwhile project, but the $8.1 million request wasn’t before the right elected officials. This was another example of doublespeak by state lawmakers who have demonstrated they want to wrest control (except when they don’t) of charter schools from local school boards and they support such projects (unless asked to pay).

Marco’s council had the right instincts when it originally approached the Collier County legislative delegation with the financial request in October. State Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples, misdirected the city to the School Board even though he’d just been an advocate of House Bill 7069, which in 2017 specifically tied charter school capital dollars to an allocation based on student enrollment. This past session, lawmakers instead came up with a new state pool of money specially set aside for capital projects for charter schools.

Terry’s alternative

Not surprisingly, the two dissenting board members were the lawmaker’s wife, Erika Donalds, who is spearheading an effort to create a new charter school on Florida’s east coast, and Kelly Lichter, who leads one in Collier.

To commit $8.1 million of taxpayer dollars would have been unwise:

• The district has planned capital needs for a future new high school and campus expansion in Immokalee, with the admirable intention of accomplishing this without taking on debt.

• Some $2 million of Irma-caused school damages may not be reimbursed by insurance or federal officials. Further school hardening is needed.

• Board members voted last year to reduce the local capital tax rate, meaning fewer such dollars available than could have been.

• Most importantly, staff told the board $8.1 million wouldn’t be the final tally; as much as $10 million more could be needed within five years.

To his credit, Terry offered a next step. He persuaded the board to turn over more proceeds from the anticipated sale of the 11.5-acre Tract K, set aside by the island’s original developer for a school, toward the academy’s project.

The board has supported selling Tract K to an eagle sanctuary nonprofit for about $2 million, with the deal to be reached by September although extensions could push that into 2020. The nonprofit is fundraising to acquire Tract K.

That transaction still won’t raise enough dollars to build a new campus for the academy, which serves about 230 students.

Therefore, it would behoove Marco officials, academy leaders and the School Board to collaboratively approach the Collier legislative delegation later this year to ask the 2019 Legislature to put its money where its mouth is in supporting this charter school.